📌 What's that on your plate?

(from the archives)

Genetically engineered foods are blurring the line between acceptable and taboo sources of food for many people. This advance of technology is taking place without the informed consent of the consumers, and additionally raises questions about the safety of such foods and the labeling standards that ought to be adopted, writes Suman Sahai.

Genetic engineering has created new possibilities in the agriculture sector. By transferring genes from one organism to another, a number of genetically engineered (GE) foods are being developed that cannot be developed in nature. The development of such GE foods has raised uncomfortable questions about the nature of foods that are being introduced into the food chain by the corporations that are the principal proponents of genetically engineered products.

The food that people eat is conditioned by the religious, social and cultural context of individuals and communities. Food is also such a personal thing and so integral to the survival of the human species that there are strong likes and dislikes associated with it and strong cultural taboos are not uncommon in communities. Vegetarians will not eat meat in any form, and Hindus, for instance, consider the eating of beef a sacrilege. With new technologies, however, scientists are producing a range of strange, unnatural foods that blur the conventional distinctions that people have made - like fish with tomato genes in it or rice engineered to produce pig vaccines. Many foods are being engineered with human genes … is that acceptable, or does it recall cannibalism? Do vegetarians want aloo tamatar ki sabzi with some fish genes in it? Or how about some fish ketchup on pakoras? What if the rice in your thali is contaminated with rice that is engineered to produce pig vaccines?

This problem is particularly troubling because it is impossible to segregate rice with pig vaccines from normal rice, or food corn from corn engineered to produce drugs for pigs. Past experience has shown that these kinds of engineered crops cannot be kept segregated and will almost always land up in the food chain. The Starlink Corn in the US containing an allergen was forbidden for human use and was released only for animal feed. But it got mixed up in food corn and landed up in corn products in Japan, UK, Canada and other countries in Europe. The unlicensed GE rice of Bayer has escaped from trial plots which were closed down as far back as 2001 in the US and is being detected in countries in Europe and in New Zealand now, in 2006. Similarly, unapproved GE rice from trial plots in China has found its way into the food chain and is showing up in Europe.

Radically altered foods, developed so recently and with so little testing, cannot be considered safe as food.

The creation of these bizarre foods can be linked directly to the entry of large corporations into agriculture biotechnology and food production. Corporations create foods that can be patented, not necessarily those that solve any real problems in agriculture, or those are geared to address food security. But why should such foods be produced? So that companies can claim them as inventions and take out patents on them? Who asked us, the consumers? Who has determined that these kinds of unnatural foods will be produced and introduced into our food chain, whether by accident or design? Who asked us if we want to eat tomatoes that had been engineered with fish genes or whether we are willing to take the risk of having rice with pig vaccines getting mixed up with our rice?

The question of ‘unnatural’ foods and ‘taboo’ foods is a sensitive issue. People have strong cultural and religious conditioning and beliefs regarding the food they are willing to eat. Introducing foods containing genes from sources that are culturally or religiously prohibited, and that too without clearly labelling them as such, is unethical and unacceptable. Corporations are alert to this stance, and continuously lobby against any kind of labeling that might give away the true origins of the foods they sell.

Safety

Apart from this, is the question of safety. You have become familiar with Bt cotton and the problems associated with it, leading to acute farmer distress. Bt cotton is a genetically engineered plant designed to make the crop resistant to pests such as the bollworm. The seeds are created by inserting a gene construct containing the toxin producing gene (called Cry1Ac) from a naturally occurring soil bacterium called Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) into the cotton plant. Once the Bt gene starts producing the toxin inside the plant, the plant creates its own toxin to kill the pests. In India trials for Bt brinjal, Bt bhindi, Bt tomato, Bt cauliflower, Bt cabbage and Bt rice are under way. Do we want to eat foods that contain genes that produce toxins?

Radically altered foods, developed so recently and with so little testing, cannot be considered safe as food. Natural foods have been domesticated over hundreds, if not thousands of years. Their drawbacks have been detected and their safety established. They are considered safe foods for that reason. That cannot be said for genetically engineered foods which are not even 10 years old.

A little of this, a little of that

Here are some examples of foods that are currently being researched, and may one day turn up on our plates:

Pig genes in rice: Three kinds of pig genes are being put into the rice plant Nihonbare in Japan.These rice plants manage to survive the application of plant killing herbicides.

Human genes in rice: Japanese researchers have inserted a gene from the human liver into rice to enable it to digest pesticides and industrial chemicals. The gene makes an enzyme, code-named CPY2B6, which can break down harmful chemicals in the body. An American company called Applied Phytologics is producing rice genetically engineered with two human genes lactoferrin and lysozyme, to protect plants against fungal and animal pests. Ventria Bioscience in California is developing rice containing human genes to produce the proteins lactoferrin and lysozyme . This genetically engineered rice is to be used as a treatment for diarrhoea.

Other strange foods

• Washington State University is testing barley altered with human genes for lactoferrin, lysozyme, antitrypsin and antithrombin.
• Meristem Therapeutics company in France is field testing maize genetically engineered with human lactoferrin genes
• Genes from the rabies virus have been inserted into tomatoes to produce an edible vaccine
• The U.S. company Prodigene was found to contaminate soybean with a GE corn engineered to produce an experimental pig vaccine, and was fined.
• Researchers at the University of Guelph (Canada) have produced the genetically engineered Enviropig to excrete less phosphate in its dung.
• Human genes to produce insulin and vaccines are being put into crops like corn, tomato and rice

This article appeared in India Together on 02 February 2007 -https://indiatogether.org/crossgene-opinions/

📍 Uncommon Ground | Vindi Banga and Suman Sahai on Food & Science, and Finding the Right Balance!

(from the archives)

Uncommon Ground | Vindi Banga and Suman Sahai on Food & Science, and Finding the Right Balance 

This is an edited version of Rohini Nilekani’s Uncommon Ground, where she brings together titans of industry and leaders of civil society to explore eight themes that are highly relevant for our future development. In this episode, she moderates a discussion on food equity with Dr. Suman Sahai, the convener of the Gene Campaign, and Vindi Banga, President, Foods, Home, and Personal Care, Unilever worldwide, and previously the chairman of Hindustan Unilever.

Uncommon Ground brings together titans of industry and leaders of civil society to explore eight themes that are highly relevant for our future development. These conversations explore the middle ground between the ideological divisions that often polarise the business and voluntary sectors. In course of these rare dialogues between leaders who have sometimes been adversaries, a number of common concerns emerge. The host uniquely placed to moderate these discussions as she traverses both sides herself, demonstrates that the relationship between business, society and state need not be necessarily confrontational. Rich in insights, Uncommon Ground highlights the critical importance of dialogue in our democracy to create a shared vision of the future. It is a significant contribution to the ongoing debate on development and equitable growth in India.

Rohini Nilekani: What can be done to help the millions of citizens who go to bed hungry? Is it a question of increasing productivity or governance? And with the increasing role of the corporate sector in the food space, is this an opportunity to reduce the disparity?

Suman Sahai: I think we need both, but primarily an increase in governance. The reason why people go to bed hungry in this country is not because there isn’t enough food, but because they either do not have the land to grow their own food, they do not have those productive assets, or they don’t have money in their pockets to buy the food that has been grown already. India actually has surplus food. We’ve had 60 lac tons in our buffer stocks while thousands of people go to bed hungry. So the key issue is that of governance — we have to have a better policy for agriculture, invest more in agriculture, create job opportunities, and implement land reforms so that people get access to land and an education. On the other hand, with a growing population we also have to increase our food production as well.  

Vindi Banga: We do need to step up food production quite significantly in India. The reason is that our food production in general has been quite static over the last couple of decades. This is a country where we’ve got population growth and now we’ve got real income growth. I think people deserve the opportunity to eat more and eat better. That will only happen if, as a structural sector, we’re able to step up agricultural production through better productivity. We need another green revolution. This is where the corporate sector comes in because these challenges are too big for any one stakeholder to tackle. Everybody has to partner and come together. The government needs to think more about irrigation and invest in research. Corporates can also help by teaming up with like-minded people, banks, seed companies, input companies, etc. to find ways to actually promote a farmer’s produce to market.

RN: However, there is some resistance to the idea of corporatised farming. How do we strike a balance here? 

SS: The crisis right now is that as agri-business gets into food, the vertical integration of the food chain puts out a lot of other players from the market. And I think this is partly also the reason for the kind of food palate that we are developing, and its contribution to obesity in the country. When you tie up from the farmer’s field to the biscuit and the margarine, you’re not only reducing the nutritional quality of the food but you’re also hurting the environment by all the food miles. By producing in one place, then taking that produce and transporting it to other parts of the world, the carbon footprint increases, the environment is affected, and people are not getting fresh produce. As a food-production strategy, producing and eating locally means downsizing the big conglomerates in food. I think this is the answer to sustainable, nutritious food production while enabling the farmer to participate as well. 

VB: I think it’s all about complementing the farmer’s role. We don’t want to take over the farmer’s role. The farmer’s real challenge isn’t finding a market, it’s accessing it. That’s where industry can play a vital role. For example, if there is some way that we can transfer the value that is today missed in the middle right down to the farmer, we could create a wonderfully virtuous circle. Let’s not forget that we want our farmers to get richer because farmers are also consumers in this country. If the farmer can be assured a market and the middleman can be cut out to the extent possible, in theory, that’s a good idea. The only thing that I would worry about in a situation like this is whether the selection of food products by agri-business would skew away from the food and nutritional needs of farmers and small consumers.

RN: With the threat of a global food crisis looming, are we looking at the need for another Green Revolution? 

VB: I think we need to create a complementary ecosystem between farmers and all the other needs that the farmer has, including access to market. India needs all kinds of foods, it needs the production of staples and vegetables to increase, so it’s not one or the other and this is where the complementary ecosystem could be created. There has been a lot of talk about Special Economic Zones, but why don’t we think in terms of Special Farming Zones with designated crop types, etc.? On those special farming zones, we could bring together all the complementary capabilities, whether we have input companies, education practices for the farmers, infrastructure, and of course access to market. 

SS: Unfortunately, the global food crisis is causing governments across the world, including ours, to think in the wrong direction. If we have a food crisis in this country, our entire focus should be on increasing food production. If that is our focus, then we cannot make the case for diverting land to Jatropha cultivation. You cannot run with the hare and hunt with the hound — food must be our primary concern. I do not think there can be argument about the fact that our country’s prime resources should be devoted to food production.What we actually need in this country, since we’re still at a level where food should be produced locally, is that the repertoire of cereal, oilseeds, legumes, protein, vegetables, are available within a reasonable distance. We need a change in our food distribution system. Unfortunately, state governments are not taking responsibility. What are we doing about Special Agriculture Zones? There was a policy decision taken that no two crop areas would ever be diverted to SEZs. I come from UP and I travel home on the road from Delhi towards Moradabad, Rampur. I come from a place called Tilhar, a prime alluvial belt, and India’s most productive, fertile land. Six months ago when I was driving home, on the left of the road, a huge area was demarcated on this prime alluvial belt for a city that is going to come up there. How did that happen? Who allowed that to happen when we have a policy decision that no two crop areas can be diverted to SEZs? This is the issue.

RN: While we have a huge issue of hunger, there’s also a huge problem of obesity and bad health. How do we send the right messaging out to people about what they should eat? Should the industry be regulated more or is the responsibility being left up to consumers? 

VB: Obesity is a very complex issue. This is recognised world over, and it was picked up by the WHO seven years ago as a big target to attack. It is related to what people eat, but it’s also related with lifestyle. Once again, this is too big a problem for any one single person or entity to tackle. I think as food producers, we have our own role to play and we’re certainly doing our best to play it. For instance, a few years ago when the WHO took up this issue, they published ideal diets, but there was no nutritional standard for processed food products. So Unilever actually set up a nutritional profiling system and we created standards based on diets, so that we could identify what products should ideally have in terms of fat, sugar, and salt levels, particularly in the context of how much they should eat daily. We have also leveraged our technology to make our products more nutritionally balanced. We’ve gone through 22,000 of our SKUs around the world and improved their nutritional profile, reducing the level of fat, salt, and sugar, without changing the taste. We believe in being very transparent and open and helping the consumer see what is inside the product. So we would like to put key nutrient information on every single pack. I think those kinds of moves will really help the consumer understand and make healthier choices to eat food. We do not advertise at all to children below the age of six for any of our food products because we have found that children are not able to distinguish between programming and advertising. Even above the age of six up to the age of 12, we only advertise products which pass the Healthy Choice test, which we do voluntarily. 

SS: I’m glad that companies are doing this and it’s certainly one step forward, but is that enough? As an industry sector, it’s not enough because the worst kind of foods are the most effectively promoted. A lot of money is spent on advertising. I think that we should really consider regulation of the same. I get worried when people talk about the need for another green revolution — even today’s food crisis has become an excuse for promoting genetically engineered foods. The science of genetic engineering is so far away from maturity. If this science had been in the hands of the universities, it would not be on the market today. These products that have been genetically engineered are on the market today because they are in the hands of the private sector.

RN: How can we promote organic food in this country to a point where it’s viable both for the consumer and for the farmer?

SS: Nothing could be easier than promoting organic food. Unlike the Western concept of organic food becoming this big premium food, organic food in India is essential because it reduces input costs. You do need soil nutrients, but there are ways of providing soil nutrients that are different to chemical inputs alone, and so we come back to balance. You need to provide soil nutrients, because you need to grow crops sustainably. But unfortunately the left-over of the green revolution in this country — the agro-chemical model of food production — is such that our scientific community is unwilling to accommodate the concept that there can be another way of producing organic food.

VB: I think it’s certainly something we should pursue, but one caution I’d put on the table is that as of now, the yield in organic farming is so low, that if overnight the world only had organic farming, we would actually exaggerate the food shortage. Whilst we pursue organic farming and learn more about it and drive it, because it has all the benefits that were just tabled, we need to be thinking of sustainable agriculture alongside that. Our company buys a lot of crops, and two third of our raw material is agricultural, so sustainability is absolutely crucial.

RN: There’s a movement to conserve seeds should we go back to thinking of crop diversity? And is there a unique Indian business solution that can be developed to strike a balance between the old ways and the new? 

SS: Gene Campaign is setting up seed banks in Jharkhand, and what we’re doing is conserving the traditional crop variety especially of rice, because India is the birthplace of rice. So we are setting up seed banks. Despite the promotion of the green revolution model, farmers are so happy to see seed varieties that they had lost two generations ago, because the Gene Campaign has taken the trouble to travel around, collect those seeds wherever we found them, multiply them, and make them available. India’s great USP is the genetic wealth in its crop varieties. Whether it is for the farmers of this country, who need to minimise and distribute their risks or for the corporate sector’s concerns to have a greater palate of products to process and make available to the consumer, it’s a win-win for both. Conserving this diversity is crucial.

VB: We need our own solution, and usually what wins takes the best of the world and the best of local, and marries the two. Indian ingenuity is very good, so I have no doubt that we’ll find it.

Originally Published on  rohininilekaniphilanthropies.org December 12, 2008

https://rohininilekaniphilanthropies.org/resources/uncommon-ground-vindi-banga-and-suman-sahai-on-food-science-and-finding-the-right-balance/

 

📍Dire Projections According To Asia Weather Report!

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) which is the UN System’s authoritative voice on Weather, Climate and Water, released its Asia Climate Report for 2025 on 17 June 2026. According to this rather grim report, Asia is in for some rocky times.

The main findings were extremely high heat, devastating uneven rainfall causing floods and severe droughts accompanied by dusty storms which expanded the area prone to desertification. And of course, rapidly melting glaciers.

According to the WMO report “Asia is impacted by rising temperatures, warming ocean waters, higher sea levels and retreating glaciers. Heavy rainfall, flooding and drought have a heavy economic and human cost, while extreme heat, dust storms and glacial flooding are

becoming major hazards.”

Exceptional monsoon and tropical cyclone-related rainfall caused devastating flooding in many countries, including Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Vietnam. Climate turbulence, predicted as one of the markers of climate change is to be seen clearly in the Asian region .The report highlights the impact of both too much and too little rainfall. Most parts of Asia received above-average rains in 2025, with exceptionally heavy monsoons. In Pakistan it was 23% above the long-term average. The flooding caused over 1,000 deaths mostly in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province where more than 230,000 houses were destroyed and over 3 million people impacted severely.

Severe flash floods caused significant damage in North India and Nepal and 142 lightening deaths were reported during the storms with furious thunder and lightening. There were devastating floods in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh too which caused plenty of damage to homes. In Viet Nam, multiple episodes of flooding resulted in at least 200 deaths and about 2 billion US$ in economic losses. Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia suffered very heavy rainfall and severe flooding due to Cyclone Senyar.

On the other hand, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan in Central Asia as well as the countries of West Asia saw scanty rainfall and protracted dry conditions. There was a long drawn out drought in Iran as well which triggered severe water shortages and prolonged, harsh dust storms.

With respect to temperatures, Asia has warmed faster than the global average in recent decades. The warming trend during 1991–2025 was approximately twice that observed during 1961–1990. The annual mean temperature in 2025 was found to be almost 1 degree C above the 1991–2020 average, indicating a steady rise in global warming.

China, Japan and South Korea suffered extreme heat conditions. All three recorded their highest ever summer temperatures. South Korea experienced such intense heat and the soil temperatures rose so high that the potato crop actually “cooked” in the ground. The harvest was ruined because the potatoes had turned soft and mushy.

Kazakhstan in Central Asia witnessed unprecedented heatwave conditions during which the temperatures soared, reaching up to 14°C above normal and Bahrain recorded ten consecutive days of above 40°C temperatures. Wild fires due to hot and dry winds raged through South Korea from March to May 2025. The 20 separate blazes ended up killing some 32 people.

Asia is warming twice as fast as the global average, driving record-breaking water temperature increase across the continents oceans and seas. The amount of heat stored in oceans in Asia has reached the highest level so far. Ocean temperatures have been increasing steadily for the last 35 years, hitting a new record in 2025. Sea level rise in the Asian region has also reached its highest level after the same 35 year period. Nearly all regional waters—including the Indian Ocean, Western Pacific, and Caspian Sea experienced severe marine heatwaves affecting over 10 million square kilometers.

The rates of sea-level rise in the Indian Ocean were much higher than the global average as registered along the Indian coast. Rising ocean heat is destabilizing ocean currents and marine life and driving up sea levels. Worryingly, the ocean water is becoming more acidic specially in parts of the Arabian Sea, Bay of Bengal and the tropical part of the Indian Ocean. This has obvious repercussions for the safety and survival of marine life. Sea level rise is not unconnected to the fact that glaciers in Asia are melting rapidly. The catastrophe in Nepal in late August of 2026 was a horrific reminder of glacier melt but the steady meting of glacial ice has been happening over the years as seen in so many Asian glaciers receding.

After the North and South Poles, it is mountainous Asia, with the Tibetan Plateau at its core, that holds the largest ice volume in the world. The glaciers here spread over approximately 100,000 sq km have been in steady retreat since the 1990s. Higher than usual temperatures and diminished winter snowfall have driven the spiralling glacial melt. According to the 2025 United Nations report, glaciers in the Hindu Kush Himalaya (HKH) region are projected to lose 30% to 50% of their volume by 2100 if emissions are low and up to 80% if current high-emission trajectories continue. 

Glaciers in the eastern and central Himalayas, such as Nepal and Bhutan, are shrinking much faster than those in the west due to higher warming and decreasing snowfall. All in all, a fairly grim picture.

📍Israel destroys the seeds of the Palestinian People

The monstrous cruelty of the Israeli regime conducting its genocide in Gaza has been there for the whole world to see. One aspect of their treacherous conduct has not been so visible as others.

On July 31 2025, the Israeli Zionists destroyed the Seed Bank in Hebron which housed the seed varieties of the local foods that the Palestinians eat. These seeds were collected and stored by Palestinian farmers to ensure the food security of their people. 

The Seed Bank was the result of many years of hard work to collect and conserve the genetic diversity of Palestinian crops and the community knowledge of that diversity to achieve food sovereignty and keep native seeds in Palestinian hands. It was this food autonomy and food sovereignty that the Israelis wanted to destroy so that Palestine would lose its food and its future.

 

⌲ Look at South Korea!

As we ponder over our abysmal failure to either increase or improve our forest cover, let us look at what South Korea has done to restore and build its forests. Remember the Comptroller and Auditor General of India told Parliament in August 2026 that the Government had failed to meet its targets to increase and improve forest cover in India, by nearly 98%. A 98 percent deficit? spoken plainly, zilch had been done. 

Now to Korea. During the 35 years of Japanese rule in Korea the country’s forests suffered severe and deliberate destruction due to aggressive commercial logging and extraction of timber for use by Japan during the two world wars. Worse was to follow when what forests were left were to face the depredations of the Korean War. By the end of the wars, almost 80 percent of Korea's forests were destroyed or severely degraded. 

To the credit of the war ravaged South Korean government, it made forest recovery a national imperative, initiating a centrally coordinated afforestation campaign in 1973. Through large-scale planting, public engagement, and intensive post-planting care, forest cover and quality steadily improved. By 2020, the overall volume of all living trees in South Korea’s forests had increased nearly 30 times from its degraded state. That is a stupendous achievement! 

South Korea borrowed an implementation-management strategy from industry used for problem solving and continuous improvement. It involves four iterative stages, Codified as PDCA: Plan → Do → Check → Act

1. Strategic planning (Plan)

2. Implementation (Do)

3. Performance evaluation (Check), and 

4. Corrective action (Act)

It was used successfully in reforesting South Korea. It’s a template anyone can use. Is the IndianGovernment listening?

📌 The tree canopy has a secret ally in cleaning up atmospheric pollution.

So far, we knew that the leaves on a tree removed atmospheric carbon dioxide by photosynthesis. But in a path breaking study published in 2021, scientists showed that bacteria living in the bark of the Australian paperbark tree consume atmospheric methane, thus doing a great job of reducing this polluting gas from the atmosphere. 

This interesting discovery was followed by another in 2024 which revealed that such methane guzzling bacteria also inhabited the bark of other tree species found in the UK, Sweden, Panama and the Amazon. 

But this was not the end of the story, yet another study published in January 2026 showed that this methane eating property was really quite widespread. Bark bacteria in tree species across the world were mopping up polluting gases, gobbling not just methane but also huge amounts of hydrogen and carbon monoxide from the air. 

These recent discoveries that trees function as comprehensive air scrubbing filters add even more weight to the importance of forests in keeping our ecosystems healthy. In light of this, #deforestation becomes an even more dangerous exercise.

#ClimateScience #Microbiology #SaveOurForests #Nature #CarbonCapture #ClimateChange #GlobalWarming

📍Supreme Court favours the Great Indian Bustard!

 

In a petition filed by the conservationist M.K. Ranjitsinh to protect the critically endangered Great Indian Bustard (GIB) and Lesser Florican from dying by hitting overhead power lines, the Supreme Court delivered a judgement in favour of protecting the birds. What a welcome step!

 

The ruling recognized that the "right to be free from the adverse effects of climate change" is an autonomous, self-determining right. That this right derives from the two fundamental rights granted in the Constitution of India, Article 21 and Article 14.

 

→ Article 21 grants every individual the Right to Life and Personal Liberty. The Supreme Court bench read this to say that  A stable, healthy climate is an essential prerequisite to enjoying a meaningful life.

 

→ Article 14 grants the Right to Equality. The Supreme Court read in this case that Disproportionate climate burdens on vulnerable communities violate equal protection of the laws.

 

The Great Indian Bustard locally called Godawan is the state bird of Rajasthan where it is considered a symbol of pride and grace. It is revered by local communities, especially by the nature loving Bishnois. The Godawan is one of the heaviest flying birds in the world and is a flagship species of the arid and semi-arid grasslands of the Indian subcontinent.

the news: https://www-barandbench-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/www.barandbench.com/amp/story/law-firms/view-point/judicial-responses-to-climate-change-constitutionalising-right-to-clean-environment-and-protection-against-effects-of-climate-change?amp_js_v=0.1&_gsa=1#webview=1&cap=swipe